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OKLAHOMA OUTLOOK
Fall 2012
You can learn more about Bart Fischer’s dream job at www.okffa.org
How To Make Your
Dreams Come True
Here’s a story about a farm boy from a small town in
Oklahoma who worked hard and persisted in light of
several things he really wanted to happen, but didn’t. He
kept going anyway and, because of his persistence, he
now has his dream job.
That could happen to you, too.
Bart Fischer joined FFA during his freshman
year at Chattanooga High School. “One of my primary
activities in FFA was public speaking. Starting with the
creed competition and then, by my senior year, doing
prepared public speaking and extemporaneous”
Fischer was also involved with production agriculture.
“If I wasn’t taking care of livestock, I was sitting on a trac-tor.
I had my own cattle operation. Started with showing,
at first through 4-H and then FFA, and also had some
crop production.”
The high point came during his senior year. “I was the
Star Farmer of Oklahoma in 1998. That was kind of the
pinnacle for me.”
The next step was college. Fischer enrolled at OSU
and five years later had a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural
Economics, and a second bachelor’s degree in Business,
with a double major in Accounting and Finance. That
alone is pretty impressive, but there’s more to the story.
During his last two years at OSU, Fischer applied for,
and came very close to winning, three major scholarships
to do graduate work in England. In each case, he was
selected as OSU’s nominee, made it to the national finals,
interviewed with the national panel, and then ... didn’t
get it. “Obviously, it was a time for reflection: ‘What am I
doing? Nothing is working out.’” Or so it seemed.
But near the end of his last year at OSU, there was a
reception for students who had gone through these
national scholarship competitions. They were recognizing
students who’d won. At the end of it, “they brought me
up there and (announced that) a few OSU donors had
put together a scholarship that paid for my graduate
degree at Cambridge. It was incredible - none of it
worked out like I anticipated, but I was still able to go
to Cambridge at the end of the day.”
My motto is, ‘It’s all about persistence.’ You
just keep moving forward.
Fischer completed his master’s degree at
Cambridge in one year. He studied environmental
policy. From Cambridge, he moved to Washington,
D.C. and took a job as an analyst with the US
Government Accountability Office, which is the inves-tigative
arm of Congress. “I did a lot of work on food
safety issues and that sort of thing. But at the end of
the day, my passion is agricultural and farm policy and
the effect of policy on farms. I wasn’t able to do that
work there. So in 2008, I decided to go to Texas A&M
to work on my Ph.D. in agricultural economics.”
continued on page H
A

OKLAHOMA OUTLOOK
Fall 2012
You can learn more about Bart Fischer’s dream job at www.okffa.org
How To Make Your
Dreams Come True
Here’s a story about a farm boy from a small town in
Oklahoma who worked hard and persisted in light of
several things he really wanted to happen, but didn’t. He
kept going anyway and, because of his persistence, he
now has his dream job.
That could happen to you, too.
Bart Fischer joined FFA during his freshman
year at Chattanooga High School. “One of my primary
activities in FFA was public speaking. Starting with the
creed competition and then, by my senior year, doing
prepared public speaking and extemporaneous”
Fischer was also involved with production agriculture.
“If I wasn’t taking care of livestock, I was sitting on a trac-tor.
I had my own cattle operation. Started with showing,
at first through 4-H and then FFA, and also had some
crop production.”
The high point came during his senior year. “I was the
Star Farmer of Oklahoma in 1998. That was kind of the
pinnacle for me.”
The next step was college. Fischer enrolled at OSU
and five years later had a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural
Economics, and a second bachelor’s degree in Business,
with a double major in Accounting and Finance. That
alone is pretty impressive, but there’s more to the story.
During his last two years at OSU, Fischer applied for,
and came very close to winning, three major scholarships
to do graduate work in England. In each case, he was
selected as OSU’s nominee, made it to the national finals,
interviewed with the national panel, and then ... didn’t
get it. “Obviously, it was a time for reflection: ‘What am I
doing? Nothing is working out.’” Or so it seemed.
But near the end of his last year at OSU, there was a
reception for students who had gone through these
national scholarship competitions. They were recognizing
students who’d won. At the end of it, “they brought me
up there and (announced that) a few OSU donors had
put together a scholarship that paid for my graduate
degree at Cambridge. It was incredible - none of it
worked out like I anticipated, but I was still able to go
to Cambridge at the end of the day.”
My motto is, ‘It’s all about persistence.’ You
just keep moving forward.
Fischer completed his master’s degree at
Cambridge in one year. He studied environmental
policy. From Cambridge, he moved to Washington,
D.C. and took a job as an analyst with the US
Government Accountability Office, which is the inves-tigative
arm of Congress. “I did a lot of work on food
safety issues and that sort of thing. But at the end of
the day, my passion is agricultural and farm policy and
the effect of policy on farms. I wasn’t able to do that
work there. So in 2008, I decided to go to Texas A&M
to work on my Ph.D. in agricultural economics.”
continued on page H
A